The Baffler‘s Thomas Frank, who you might remember from his book What’s the Matter with Kansas?, has a brutal takedown on the idea of “vibrancy” out now, a meaningless idea that somehow has come to symbolize all that is good and wonderful about modern cities, even to our own Imagine Greater Tucson (as seen above):
Even ArtPlace, the big vibrancy project of the NEA, the banks, and the foundations, is not entirely sure that vibrancy can be observed or quantified. That’s why the group is developing what it calls “Vibrancy Indicators”: “While we are not able to measure vibrancy directly,” the group’s website admits, “we believe that the measures we are assembling, taken together, will provide useful insights into the nature and location of especially vibrant places within cities.”
What are those measures? Unfortunately, at press time, they had not yet been announced. But a presentation of preliminary work on the “Vibrancy Indicators” did include this helpful directive: “Inform leaders of the connection between vibrancy and prosperity.”
Got that? We aren’t sure what vibrancy is or whether or not it works, but part of the project is nevertheless “informing” people that it does. The meaninglessness of the phrase, like the absence of proof, does not deter the committed friend of the vibrant: if you know it’s the great good thing, you simply push ahead, moving all before you with your millions.
This article appears in Jul 12-18, 2012.
Reminds me of the funniest thing Kurt Loder ever said (which is not too high a bar of “funny”) — after playing a clip of Q-Tip explaining what he meant by “vivrant” in his song “Vivrant Thing” — “You know, someone with a lot of energy and enthusiasm, excitement” — Loder deadpanned “In other words, VIBRANT.”
I like to make fun of jargon as much as the next guy, but to me “vibrant” just means “alive” (Webster: “pulsating with life, vigor, or activity”), coming to us as it does etymologically from the same root as “viva” in Spanish. Now, as regards Imagine Greater Tucson, while I may think vibrant means a lively place to live and play, for the folks who are behind IGT it mainly refers to people buying lots of houses and cars and spending money in the shopping malls.
It means once again hearing the carefree squeals of formerly terrified middle and upper-middle class white people who’ve come to by expensive crap, drink gourmet coffees and wines in the downtown they’ve sedulously avoided for years.